Chris McCafferty: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the new millennium development goal target for universal access to reproductive health by 2015? Does he agree that that would help to save the lives of the half a million women in Africa who die needlessly from pregnancy and child birth-related causes every year, and that it would also help those families to choose the number and spacing of their children?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman is, of course, absolutely right. The other factor that history teaches us can bring down family size is people becoming better off. When they have an income, they are not so dependent on having a large number of children and very practical questions of social security are relevant. Who is going to look after people in their old age, and who is going to look after them when they are destitute? If they have no visible means of support, what do people traditionally do? They rely on having a large number of children in order to try to provide for that care and support. Giving women greater choice about their own fertility and continuing the fight against poverty are the two single most important things that we can do to help bring down the rate of population growth. As the report of the all-party group makes very clear, that rate of growth threatens to undermine progress in the fight against poverty in some countries.

Hilary Benn: I am happy to reflect on the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. However, as my earlier answers suggested and as the hon. Gentleman will find in both the White Paper and the departmental report, DFID is already on the case and taking action on the issues that he listed in his question as necessary to be addressed in order to deal with the problem of population growth. We are doing so because, for the reasons that I set out, it is right and also because it will have the additional beneficial effect of moderating what would otherwise be an increase in population that some countries would find very difficult to deal with.

Susan Kramer: DFID rightly supports many programmes to prevent the transmission of HIV from an infected mother to an infant through the use of retrovirals. On previous occasions I have raised the issue of the failure of those programmes to continue to provide treatment to the mother, so that she typically dies within two years, leaving the infant as an orphan. Has the hon. Gentleman pursued that issue and made an assessment of what could be done?

Eric Joyce: My constituency of Falkirk has recently seen an upsurge in the amount of public underage drinking, which has led to antisocial behaviour and worse. The police are doing what they can, and my local newspaper is running a campaign aimed at reducing that blight on the lives of many of my constituents and people across the country. Will my right hon. Friend join me in commending the "Cork It!" campaign of  The Falkirk Herald?

Meg Hillier: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the regulation of the teaching of dance; and for connected purposes.
	It gives me great pleasure to introduce this Bill, which aims to improve the teaching offered by teachers of dance throughout the country. Dance is one of the most popular forms of activity for spectators and dancers in Britain, and the second most popular activity in schools. Its popularity is rising faster than that of any other art form. Some 4.8 million people participate in community dance, and hundreds of thousands more dance in private dance schools, leisure centres and school clubs. Crucially, for girls it is one of the main focuses of physical activity, and a report, which is due to be published shortly, by Hampshire Dance and Laban provides the first ever statistical evidence showing that dance has a positive effect on both the physical fitness and the psychological health of children aged 11 to 14 years.
	I want to highlight the benefits of dance to young people in particular before moving on to some of the reasons why this House should consider the need to require that dance teachers have a minimum standard of qualification. Dance reaches parts of the British public that other physical activities do not reach. Some 40 per cent of all girls have dropped out of all sports activity by the time that they are 18, but surveys in 2003 and 2004 of 50,000 year 9 pupils in more than 700 schools in the north-west of England showed that dance was the top recreational activity for girls outside school. Dance is classed as physical education in schools, so it is more difficult to measure its take-up in class time, but the number of pupils taking a GCSE in dance rose 125 per cent. between 2001 and 2005. So there is no question but that dance is popular, and this popularity and increase in participation can only be good news for the nation's health.
	However, the rise in popularity is not matched by an increase in the number of dance teachers; currently, demand outstrips supply. We need to make sure that we do not lose the chance to get people involved, that high-quality teachers are available who can safely inspire and engage young people, and that this growth in popularity continues. This Bill seeks to address the lack of a requirement for a single recognised teaching qualification for dance teachers. The absence of such a requirement raises important issues associated with the protection of children, in particular.
	The Bill is not pressing for a requirement that all genres of dance should have a formal accreditation system, although I acknowledge the work done by the Imperial Society of Teachers Of Dancing, for example, which is based in my constituency, and by the other major dance accreditation bodies in supporting teachers in their efforts to enthuse young dancers as they progress through a properly evaluated dance awards system. I recognise that much dance is taught less formally. In constituencies such as mine, we see a wide range of national and regional dance from around the world. Of the millions of people who participate in dance in the UK each year, many do so because it is part of their cultural heritage. At events in my constituency, including the many cultural festivals that take place most weekends, I see the range of dance styles being taught. Dance in Britain truly reflects the diversity of our society. One of the biggest growth areas in the UK is street dance, which is taught by peers. Interestingly, this dance form has increased the participation of young men, and must be welcomed. We should not try to stem the creativity of this more informal type of dance teaching.
	However, there are serious issues associated with the capability of dance teachers. Whatever the genre, there are issues that all teachers need to be aware of: protection against the abuse and injury of children; the need for dance teachers to be insured; and, of course, a minimum standard of teaching skill. Many schools and youth agencies struggle to find teachers with the necessary skills and qualifications. Employers can be confused by the array of dance qualifications, which do not clearly highlight which teachers have the skills and qualifications necessary to teach safely, in line with current child protection standards.
	It is fair to say that the dance sector recognises this issue and has taken significant steps in the past decade to self-regulate the quality of teaching. In the short time that I have today I cannot mention all the initiatives, but schemes such as the recognised school status introduced by the Council for Dance Education and Training at the end of last year, together with dance qualifications offered by the Imperial Society of Teachers Of Dancing, the Royal Academy of Dance, the British Ballet Organisation and the British Theatre Dance Association, all of which are accredited by recognised bodies, contribute to the safety of the growing number of young people taking up dance.
	However, there is no national standard of qualification for dance teachers. Achieving a single qualification would be difficult, but a minimum required standard for teachers is essential. Despite the various accreditation schemes for different dance genres, there is no easy way for parents who take their children to a dance class to be sure that their child is in safe hands. As many dance teachers are self-employed, there is no one regulatory body that ensures that these individuals have a Criminal Records Bureau check or public liability insurance. I suspect that most parents are not aware of that. We need to make it easier for people to know what they are buying into, as well as ensuring that professional development is improved. I hope that teachers would welcome that, too.
	Recently, work has been begun by the dance sector on generic standards. Laban has introduced a training and accreditation project, with the aim of developing a flexible qualification and the Foundation for Community Dance has launched a strategy for the development of a professional framework, including a code of conduct. That is the best hope to date of achieving a recognised common standard.
	Dance UK is one of the umbrella groups for professional dancers and choreographers in the UK and it is very positive about the support that the Government have provided to boost dance as an art form. The Government have improved facilities through investment in projects such as the new Sadler's Wells, which is close to my constituency, and through funding for organisations such as Youth Dance England and individual companies to expand their education work. Now is the time to ensure that the continuing growth in the popularity of dance is matched by, at the very least, consistency of quality at the grassroots.
	Youth Dance England receives £100,000 a year compared to Youth Music's £10 million a year. I applaud the money given, but if we are to see good quality teaching of dance, the inequity between the two arts needs to be tackled. The issue of basic standards for dance teachers is not difficult to resolve, and I urge the Government and the British dance movement to work together to ensure that there is wider understanding and recognition of the benefits of dance.
	Consumers who take up dance, be they parents, children or adult learners, need to know what they are getting. The Government have made friends in the world of dance, but they now need to press for industry-wide core standards by highlighting best practice and demanding more. If the current self regulation still leaves some dance professionals without a basic set of core standards, stronger steps may be necessary. I ask that the Government recognise the steps that the dance movement is taking and work with it to bolster that progress, so that consumers are protected; dancers, particularly children, are safe; and we have a minimum standard of qualification for teachers of dance.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Meg Hillier, Mr. Frank Doran, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Lynne Jones, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Harry Cohen, Mr. Andrew Slaughter, Joan Ruddock and Bob Russell.

Dance Teachers (qualifications and Regulation)

James Brokenshire: These proposals give us the opportunity to debate the important issue of child protection and to ensure that there are appropriate measures to prevent the trust and innocence of childhood from being shattered by sexual abuse. There is no doubt of the importance of the issue.
	In 2000, a study of nearly 3,000 children conducted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that 21 per cent. of girls and 11 per cent. of boys surveyed reported having been sexually abused or assaulted. The issue is complex and sensitive, and one of the challenges is to assess the scale of offending and to ensure that those who have suffered abuse are properly supported in their recovery from trauma and allowed to bring their abusers to justice.
	The new clauses on the use of polygraph testing reflect wording introduced in the draft offender management Bill of 2005, and the Government's thinking and approach are largely the same as in that measure. As the Minister said, the proposal builds on the pilot study conducted by Professor Don Grubin of Newcastle university—the results of which were published just before Christmas. The emerging findings from the pilot indicate that in up to 80 per cent. of cases the offender made new disclosures relevant to their behaviour, supervision or treatment and that 94 per cent. of probation staff found the information gained from the polygraph "helpful" or "very helpful" in assessing and managing the risks posed by offenders. We should examine that information closely when considering the wider application of polygraphs to ensure that the public, and children in particular, are protected from paedophiles and those who want to commit sexual abuse.
	A number of issues and questions flow from the proposals, however, and I hope that the Minister can respond to them when he winds up the debate. As he pointed out, the initial pilot study was in many ways self-selecting, so it is important properly to reflect that aspect in the further three studies to which he referred. Can he provide further detail about how the Government will ensure that safeguards are put in place and appropriate measures are effected to address the self-selection issue in the follow-on studies? If polygraphy is to have wider application, it is essential that its effectiveness on those who may not want to take a polygraph test is properly examined and assessed.
	On the mandatory testing requirement, the Minister said in Committee that he would consider carefully the ambit and scope of the application of polygraph testing and whether it was appropriate to limit it to offenders who had been subject to imprisonment for 12 months or more. Given the necessity to ensure the widest possible public protection, can he explain the approach that he is taking and why high-risk sex offenders may not fall within the current scope of the mandatory testing regime?
	In Committee and during his speech today, the Minister highlighted the need for training in the conducting of tests and for safeguards in respect of the equipment to be used, and I note his comments. However, what further requirements will there be to ensure that information gained as a consequence of polygraph testing is used appropriately and effectively, and that if heightened risk of offending is identified appropriate action will be taken? Those are key aspects of the effectiveness of any further roll-out of the proposal, so some more detail about the arrangements would be appropriate.
	There will be real concerns that the introduction of mandatory polygraph testing and the ability to attach it to licence conditions may be seen as a means of allowing the earlier release of convicted paedophiles. Seeing perpetrators released early could deal a severe blow to the survivors of abuse and could heighten risk, so what assurance can the Minister give that prisoners convicted of a specific sexual offence will not be released earlier as a result of the proposed measures?
	If the proposed arrangements are to work effectively, they have to be underpinned by the consistent application of multi-agency public protection arrangements, so what steps has the Minister taken to ensure that the disturbing failures in confirming and identifying the location of offenders have been addressed? It is utterly unacceptable that offenders can provide addresses such as "Park Bench" before their release from custody. It is essential for us to know that there are effective systems for monitoring and tracking offenders. Can the Minister assure us that suitable measures are already in effect, or are being introduced, to ensure that appropriate address details are provided and are being followed up? Are the police actively checking addresses given by offenders and gaining access to ascertain that the offender is indeed resident at the address?
	The use of GPRS systems and other technology to assist with the tracking of offenders has been suggested. Given that, as the Minister said, the Government will shortly report back to the House on their overall assessment of child sexual abuse issues, it would be helpful if he clarified the Government's thinking on that matter. Are they actively considering GPRS in that context?
	One issue that I touched on initially was victims. The NSPCC and Barnardo's certainly provide fantastic support to child victims following abuse, helping them through the process. Often, though, it can take years for the abuse to come out and for the person who has suffered it in childhood to receive therapy. Just before the February recess, I had the opportunity to visit a charity based in Devonport, Plymouth, which specialises in dealing with male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is one of only four organisations known nationally to deal with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse. What I saw there was quite humbling, quite shocking and disturbing, but at the same time quite uplifting, because I saw what can be done to assist people who have suffered from childhood sexual abuse to move on and lead comparatively normal lives. The sad fact is that many suffer from drug abuse, mental health issues and problems of self-respect because of what they suffered during their childhood and the decades of impact that it has had. In looking for solutions to deal with and stop childhood sexual abuse, it is essential that the victim's voice is heard loudly and clearly. The work of organisations that provide support and assistance to those who have suffered abuse, even though that abuse might come to light years and years later, is essential too.
	In that light, the work of Twelve's Company in Devonport is instrumental. Although its work is limited to people based in Devonport, its findings over the past few years are certainly worth putting on the record. In its experience, the average age when a male survivor first experiences ongoing and prolonged sexual abuse is just nine years old. Within two years of being abused, most survivors have their first taste of drugs or alcohol. For many, 11 years old is when they start a long battle with addiction, and by the time that they are 14, criminal activity will be funding their habits. That gives an impression of the damaging impact of childhood sexual abuse and the decades of dealing with the problem that follow. We need to remember that most seek support only in their mid-30s, even though, as the figures suggest, the abuse may well have started when they were only nine years old.
	In considering the amendments, it is important to focus on strangers—those who might be predatory paedophiles—but in the context of the wider debate, it is worth recognising and putting on record the fact that about 80 per cent. of victims know the attacker who perpetrates the sexual offence, whether they be a relative, friend, employer or some other person in a position of trust who is known to them.
	In finding appropriate solutions to deal with this complex area, it is essential from a public protection aspect to focus on the 20 per cent. at whom these measures are largely, though not exclusively, targeted. However, if we want to provide effective longer-term solutions to the problem of dealing with childhood sexual abuse, it is essential to recognise that figure of 80 per cent. A multi-agency approach needs to be applied if we are to provide solutions that will have a long-lasting effect on this most significant, important and serious issue.

David Heath: May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) and for Ceredigion (Mark Williams), who made a substantial contribution in Committee?
	I thank the Minister for the proportionate way in which he has introduced this group of amendments, and for the careful way in which he has expressed the Government's intentions. In considering the issue of polygraph testing, the unworthy thought came into my head that some integral arrangement attaching a polygraph to the Dispatch Box could be of huge benefit to the House—but of course it would give a negative result in all cases, and would therefore lose any value.
	It must be appropriate for us to consider any measures that will enhance the protection of the public in relation to sex offenders who are in the community. Several aspects of the Government's proposals puzzle me, however. Why is the measure being introduced in the form of a new clause, albeit in response to amendments tabled in Committee by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), given that it was a Labour manifesto commitment to introduce the regime? It was incorporated into the previous Bill, which did not see the light of the statute book. It might therefore have been expected to be an integral part of this Bill from the start. Was there a concern related to the original drafting of the Bill, which has now been allayed to enable the Government to table the new clause at this stage?
	The second big issue is the admissibility of material derived from polygraph testing, including statements made under polygraph testing conditions and the physiological responses to questioning in those circumstances. The Minister has tabled an amendment that makes it clear that the material obtained from polygraph testing under this arrangement will not be used in court proceedings, and he is absolutely right to do so. Will he go a little further and make it clear that the Government do not intend to introduce polygraph testing in other circumstances—for example, in the context of police investigations? Some countries allow polygraph testing during such investigations, and some allow such evidence to be admissible in court. We would need a great deal of persuasion to support that as a general principle, and it would be helpful if the Minister could differentiate between this use—which, as I see it, is a matter of the management of an individual—and the collecting of evidence, which would be more difficult to accept.
	I think that the Minister said that he could certify that the provisions in the new clause were compliant with requirements of the Human Rights Act 1998. I am glad that that is the case, and that there will be no need for any derogation in order to implement the proposals.
	Does the Minister agree that, to establish the effectiveness of the pilot schemes, we shall need not only quantitative information—on recidivism, and so on—about the use of polygraphs, but qualitative material that can be analysed? What matters is not whether someone has failed a polygraph test under the supervision of probation officers, but whether that has resulted in an effective change of regime, and a change in the way in which the case is managed. We would need to know what kind of change had been made, and how effective it had been in producing the desired result—namely, the protection of the public and the rehabilitation of the offender.
	Is it the Government's intention to produce a code of conduct for the operators of polygraph technology, so that everyone can be clear about the right way not only of operating the equipment—a technical issue—but of determining the kind of questions that it is appropriate to ask? Such questions should not be too intrusive into the personal life of the individual, but should be designed specifically to address potentially offending behaviour.
	I have no reason not to support the proposed pilots. Anything that can be done to mitigate offending behaviour, particularly among this group of individuals, is to be welcomed. As we know, there is a common characteristic among many sex offenders of behaviour that is intended to deceive and to obscure their activities. In the light of that, and of the compulsive nature that is exhibited by many sex offenders, polygraph testing might become a very valuable tool. We do not know whether that will be proved in practice, but that is what the pilots will enable us to establish. I hope, for the sake of every child in the country, that they are successful.

Michael Penning: I apologise to the House and to the Minister for being late and for missing the Minister's opening remarks. He knows that, even though I did not serve on the Bill's Committee, I have a deep interest in the subject of the protection of people from paedophiles and sex offenders.
	I welcome the piloting of polygraph testing, but I have a slight concern about the practicality of how the testing will work. I tabled a question to the Home Office some months ago, asking how many of the people on the sex offenders register who were registered with the police had gone missing, whereabouts unknown. The answer was very disturbing, and I know that the Minister was concerned about the reply that he had to give me. It was that the information is not held centrally. If we do not know where all the people on the sex offenders register are, how is the polygraph system going to work? Perhaps the Minister can clarify whether we now have a central database. I have to ask whether his trips round the world researching Megan's law and so on will have been worth while if we are incapable of knowing where all these people are.
	My other concern has been raised by several senior policemen in my constituency, not least those who specialise in this subject. It concerns the ability of a paedophile who has been released from prison and placed on the sex offenders register to change his name by deed poll. This relates to our ability to contact these people and to get them to come in for a polygraph test. Surely we must be able to pass legislation to prevent paedophiles from changing their names. This is a matter of great concern. We all know that paedophiles do not think that they are doing anything wrong; they think that the standards and codes of the general public are wrong, and that what they are doing is perfectly acceptable. If they can change their names by deed poll—a practice that is becoming more and more common—how are we going to track them down to give them a polygraph test?
	With that last point in mind—I will not delay the House any more, because this is an important debate—if paedophiles do not believe that they are doing anything wrong, will the polygraph test indicate that they are telling an untruth or lying? If they intrinsically believe that what they are doing is legitimate and right, the questioning in the polygraph test has to be very careful; otherwise, we will just get false readings.

Gerry Sutcliffe: That leads me on to the issue that the hon. Member for Hornchurch raised about what we are doing to stop people giving addresses such as "in the woods". Although I have some concerns about "in the woods" being an address, the reason why that was done was that offenders had to tell people where they were and to say "no fixed abode" was not appropriate either. To make sure that people comply, in addition to what everybody accepts as the proper arrangements—involving the multi-agency public protection bodies that deal with high-risk offenders—we will also make it a requirement that the offenders have to report regularly to a police station. We will bring legislation forward to do that. This point relates to the question of why we have no central records. The issue is about the MAPPA—multi-agency public protection arrangements—authorities, of which there are 42, making sure that they know where their sex offenders are and making sure that they know the interfaces that take place when people move around. The big issue is about denial and the way in which child sex offenders operate.

David Kidney: One of the proclaimed important aims of the Bill is to establish the end-to-end management of sentences for offenders. Most people say that that would be a good thing, and they include the many probation officers in Staffordshire who have lobbied me in support of their union, NAPO, which opposes many other things in the Bill. Everybody says that end-to-end management would be a good thing.
	The Secretary of State already has ultimate responsibility for the Prison Service, and, as we will see when we reach clause 3, prison officers will become part of the National Offender Management Service. The plan is that the Secretary of State will also have ultimate responsibility for the probation service, which brings together lines of accountability. We are concerned today about the public accountability and consultation processes in the service, from top to bottom. We would not say, would we, that the Prison Service as it is run at present is a good example of public accountability and consultation at the local level, however good its service—and it certainly is good at Stafford prison in my constituency. We are looking for something better.
	The Bill requires, at a national level, the Secretary of State to consult every year, and that is a good thing. I point out that many of those who contribute to providing offender management are not in the service. The national health service provides mental health treatment, drink and substance abuse services, and speech and language therapies, in which some hon. Members are especially interested. The NHS is a huge contributor from outside the service. Another is the Learning and Skills Council, which nationally and regionally provides skills, training and education and funds many services for offenders. Another good example is local authorities, which, in their "supporting people" programme provide supported housing. All those examples show why it is important for there to be consultation and accountability at the national level and at the regional level, because the NHS, local authorities and the Learning and Skills Councils all have a regional presence.
	In a letter from the Minister to members of the Public Bill Committee there is an assurance that, at the regional level, the new regional offender managers will consult organisations such as learning and skills councils, Government offices of the regions, strategic health authorities and local government regional associations. That is all very good, but perhaps the Minister could say a little more about why those do not appear in the Bill if we are to accept that there will be good, strong regional accountability and consultation.
	We then come to the local level, and the Minister has a good story to tell, but it is not in the Bill. He says that that is because it is in another Bill, currently going through Parliament, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill. It is a good story because it tries to tie this structure, at a local level, through probation trusts and in future, if the Bill is successful, their many providers, in with all the existing local processes: local area agreements, local strategic partnerships, community safety partnerships, and crime and disorder reduction partnerships. It is intended that all those should be partners of probation trusts. That will be a good and strong outcome, if it happens.
	Clause 10, which deals with sharing information and to which an amendment has been tabled, will ensure that probation services and the new offender management service will participate in sharing information at local level. If the Minister can assure us that those measures are set solidly, we can be sure that the right accountability and consultation processes will be in place.

David Heath: I, too, am mindful of the time and of the need to allow the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) the opportunity to speak to his amendments in the group.
	We have come to the substance of the Bill and to one of the primary objections to the Bill, which is that it is essentially a centralising measure—one that takes both power and accountability upward rather than downward. Many of us have difficulty with the lack of local accountability and even local consultation. I heard what the Minister said in response to his hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and we will examine the proposals closely, but I would prefer to see in this Bill explicit requirements for local accountability and local consultation. I take on board what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said in that respect and support his proposals.
	The hon. Member for Stafford is correct: no one would point to the Prison Service as a good example of local accountability and concern for maintaining proper relations with the local community. That might be excused by the fact that the people with whom the Prison Service deals are in prison, not in the community. Sadly, that is not always the case, but generally prisoners are in prison, not roaming the streets. However, when dealing with the probation service in the context of community sentences, we are talking about people who are not only within the community, but—one hopes—serving sentences within the community that relate to their effect on the local community. The key is confidence: confidence on the part of the local community that the service is doing a good job; confidence that the offender is being managed appropriately; confidence that the sentence reflects the concern that the community expresses about crimes that are committed locally; and confidence within members of the judiciary—especially the lay magistracy—that they can hand down a community sentence that will be properly administered and will have the desired effect in terms of rehabilitation and the other parts of the equation that the probation service deals with.
	It is hard to see how a small management board consisting, we are told by the Minister, of business people reflects the views of the community. It may reflect the views of local businesses and it may be very good at running the affairs of the service, but it does not reflect a genuine community interest. That is one of the reasons why I tabled amendment No. 18, which would ensure that every new trust had on its board a lay magistrate and a local councillor. I appreciate that those are two classes of person to whom the Government have a violent allergy, as they have demonstrated time and again, but there is no better representation of the local community than representation by those who are elected via the ballot box to play that role, and the lay magistracy continues to play an important part in our judicial system. In addition, both local councillors and lay magistrates are members of the existing probation boards, and it is hard to discern what difference has arisen since the last time the arrangements were changed to suggest that then it was right to include those individuals and now it is wrong.
	I accept entirely the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that one councillor cannot truly be said to represent all strands of opinion within a community, especially one covering a large area; however, he can represent the interests expressed by the council on which he serves, which is representative of the community. In addition, it is entirely necessary for the probation service to have connections with many services that are in the hands of the local authority. That connection is therefore of value for utilitarian as well as for representative reasons.
	What is most important is that there is someone who is accountable to the public—the first point in the chain at which someone who is representative of the public can say that, as far as the community is concerned, the way in which offenders are being managed in the community will not do because they are not undertaking tasks or being managed in ways that are appropriate to that community. That is the representative voice that should be heard at that level.
	I have already made the argument applicable to the presence of the magistracy on probation boards. It is important that magistrates have confidence in community sentencing. Their being represented on the board is one way to establish that confidence.
	For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will accept amendment No. 18. He has suggested that the Local Government Association supports the Bill because it meets the association's requirements. I have to say that his reading of the LGA briefing is very different from mine. I might have to declare an interest at this point, because I might be an honorary vice-president of the LGA. I was once, but I am not sure whether I still am. I was certainly a councillor of long standing. In its briefing, the LGA suggests an amendment in similar terms to the one that I tabled and says:
	"If the Bill is amended in this way, the LGA believes that it would address our concerns about local accountability."
	Reciprocally, if the Bill is not amended in that way, it will not address the association's concerns about local accountability. That is why I commend my amendment to the House.

Elfyn Llwyd: A consensus is developing on this part of the Bill. Running through the amendments is a thread to do with consultation, local accountability and similar concerns. I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 4 and 5, both of which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends. Amendment No. 4 would ensure proper consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government on the provision of probation services in Wales, and amendment No. 5 deals with proper consultation with probation trusts and so on. My argument will therefore be similar to those that have already been made.
	Under current legislation, the statutory duty to make arrangements for the provision of probation services rests exclusively with the local probation board. As others have said, under the Bill that duty is transferred to the Secretary of State. That, in itself, is a massive shift of both power and responsibility from local governance to Westminster. Although the Secretary of State has appointed regional offender managers and, in Wales, a director of offender management, those ROMs, as they are known, have no local accountability whatever. That is particularly unfortunate in the Welsh context in view of the role of the Welsh Assembly Government. I am sure that the Minister will address those points. Both amendments are probing, and if the Minister will respond in due course, I shall confine my speech to getting the points over.
	Unfortunately, the Bill does not mention the Welsh Assembly Government, even though key services with which existing probation boards and, in due course, the new boards work very closely are delivered through the Welsh Assembly. Lifelong learning, health and housing have all been devolved fully to the Welsh Assembly. My point is that close co-operation between the commissioners, the providers of probation services and the Welsh Assembly Government is essential. That is why the Secretary of State should be required to undertake regular and meaningful consultation with the Assembly Government.
	The Bill does not take into account the different circumstances that pertain to Wales, and there is a great deal of concern about how the implementation of the Bill will impact on the provision of probation services in Wales. Some of those concerns stem from a National Offender Management Service document published in August 2006 on working together to reduce re-offending, which failed to mention the Welsh Assembly or to recognise the different circumstances pertaining to Wales. Paragraph 1.14 of that document states that three strong alliances—a corporate alliance, a civic society alliance, and a faith and voluntary sector alliance—are being incorporated to promote and encourage greater involvement on the part of employers, local authorities, and voluntary and faith organisations in reducing reoffending.
	Will there be a Welsh dimension, and indeed a local dimension, to those alliances? If not, how will knowledge of local and regional requirements and differences be imparted? In the case of the voluntary sector, will the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and county voluntary organisations such as Mantell Gwynedd have a role to play?
	On page 17 of the NOMS document, there is a reference to a NOMS national provider network. Will that have a Welsh dimension? Could it result in contracts for services in North Wales being given to bodies from England and other parts of the UK? What safeguards will there be in relation to the provision of Welsh language services? The ability to provide services in the Welsh language is of the utmost importance in parts of Wales, particularly in some areas in Gwynedd where more than 80 per cent of the population are Welsh speakers. Will all the organisations given contracts in Wales be required to have a Welsh language policy, and will they have to show the same commitment to the language, and to the provision of services in the preferred language of the user, as the relevant area probation board currently does?
	The purpose of the Bill is to split the responsibility for commissioning and providing probation services, and to introduce contestability, or whatever one calls it. Possibly, it is privatisation by the back door, but I will not go into that now. The emphasis on competition seems to be in direct conflict with the approach taken by the Welsh Assembly Government and other public bodies in Wales towards the provision of public services. In fact, the Welsh Assembly Government's document, "Making the Connections: Delivering Better Services for Wales", referred to public services in Wales as being based on co-operation and collaboration, rather than on competition. The north Wales probation board has an excellent record on developing and maintaining partnerships with local bodies to provide services to offenders. It should be allowed—indeed, encouraged—to develop that work further without any interference by Government.
	Public bodies in Wales, including probation boards, are being judged and audited on the basis of the progress that they are making in implementing the "Making the Connections" agenda. The enactment of the Bill would make it difficult, if not impossible, for probation services in Wales to be judged on that basis. Those are pretty important points, and if the Minister cannot address them today, I respectfully ask him to respond in writing, as the Welsh Assembly Government and many people throughout Wales are concerned about the impact of the Bill.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I once again thank hon. Members for their contributions; they have been consistent in their views, both in Committee and on Report. I have to say to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) that I have never accepted that the Bill is top-down. Indeed, it is the other way round, and we put safeguards in place to make sure that that is so, as was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). I am grateful for his contribution, in which he set out what we are trying to achieve. This has been a constructive debate, and I have listened carefully to the points made today and in the past, and in discussions with a number of colleagues and organisations. I recognise and share the desire of the House to ensure proper consultation, representation and planning under the new arrangements.
	Let me begin by referring to consultation, to which we are fully committed. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, clause 2 already places a requirement on the Secretary of State to consult at least once a year such persons as he thinks fit about the provision that should be made for probation purposes in the following year. The consultation will take place through the nine regional commissioners in England, and through the director of offender management in Wales. That will be one of the key ways in which commissioners engage with stakeholders and identify the needs that must be met. The people consulted will include sentencers, providers of probation services, providers of custodial services, other criminal justice agencies, local authorities, learning and skills councils, and bodies involved in the provision of services that contribute to the reduction of reoffending.
	In Wales, we are fully committed to working closely with the Welsh Assembly Government. The reducing reoffending strategy for Wales was jointly developed by the National Offender Management Service in Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government, along with other organisations. The current NOMS commissioning plan for Wales will continue to be prepared in consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government as part of the overall plans to reduce reoffending and ensure public protection. The reducing reoffending action plan was produced jointly by NOMS Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government's reducing re-offending strategy board for Wales. The board is important, because it involves other agencies. It is chaired jointly by the director of offender management in Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government, so there is a relationship there, and I hope that it will strengthen.
	I am fully aware of the need to involve the Welsh Assembly Government; the question is whether we need to specify that in the Bill. In Committee, we debated whether consultees should be specified in the Bill, and if they were, which organisations they should be. In Committee, there was no real consensus on that point. In general, it seems that a list would not be an especially helpful way forward, given that we want to include a range of interests, not simply across different agencies and sectors, but at all levels, from the local to, where appropriate, the national.
	The Welsh Assembly Government, as the body responsible for many of the services with which probation trusts need to interact, occupy a unique position. On reflection, I agree that it may make sense to reflect that in the Bill, and I am happy to consider how we might best achieve that. With that assurance, I hope that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) will withdraw his amendment, because I feel that we can come back to him on his point.
	I am less convinced by amendments Nos. 5 and 9. The aims of those two amendments are appropriately achieved by the duty in clause 2 to consult, which, as I said, we wish to exercise widely and openly. I therefore do not accept the amendments as they stand, but I am happy to consider matters further and bring forward any further improvements that are necessary.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I hope that the Opposition do not press their amendments in the light of what I have said about accepting them in principle and returning to the issue at a later stage.

Edward Garnier: What the Minister said was interesting. From time to time, the Government need the spur of a Division to keep them to their word, and it is only for reasons of time that I shall not seek the opinion of the House this afternoon. I accept his word that he does not want a top-down system, but the facts on the ground are different. The winter supplementary estimates for 2006-07 for the Home Office and for NOMS are revealing compared with those for 2004-05. The Government will spend £60 million more on NOMS headquarters than on the entire probation service for 2006-07; £899 million will be spent on those headquarters and only £832 on the probation service. Since March 2005, the NOMS budget has increased by 556 per cent., partly because of the transfers from the probation service and the Prison Service budgets to NOMS for that two-year period. The probation service headquarters budget, however, has fallen by £160 million to £40 million in that period.
	 It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. Deputy Speaker  put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	 Question put and negatived.

Gerry Sutcliffe: If my hon. Friend read the Committee proceedings, he will know that the issue was raised then. We intend to make sure that transparency and data sharing continue. There should be no excuse for failing to maintain those relationships, and he will know that the private sector is involved in many aspects of that work—I will return to those issues later. He has read the briefing from the Probation Boards Association, and I hope that he has read, too, the briefings from all the organisations that have contacted the House to learn where they stand on the issue.
	I was explaining that the public sector has a key role to play in the arrangements, and I was discussing core offender management work such as the writing of reports for courts and the supervision of individual cases. I repeat that that work will remain for the next few years in the public sector, which has inherited expertise in the field. We will not dumb down standards, and the work must be carried out in association with qualified probation staff. I accept the House's concerns about the pace and scale of change, and I have been considering, as has my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, how we might best respond to those concerns.
	We have concluded that it is right to give statutory force to our assurances to show the House and external stakeholders that we are serious about what we say. I have looked carefully at the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and have held helpful discussions with him, for which I thank him. We tried to achieve a consensus on our aims in respect of offender management. I recognise his commitment to the probation service and his desire to secure the future of the public sector.

Chris Mullin: No sensible person is against the charitable sector being involved in the provision of those services, but we have trouble understanding why it requires the Bill in order to make that possible. Surely some charities are involved already, and there must be other ways that do not involve a sledgehammer to enable the Government to encourage more to get involved.

Edward Garnier: As before, I will endeavour to be brief because amendments other than mine may command greater public attention. None the less, I should like to comment on the Government's new clauses and on our new clause 3.
	New clause 3 is wholly uncontroversial and nothing other than common sense. I declare an interest as a Crown Court recorder who has received pre-sentence reports from the probation service and will presumably, if I continue to sit, receive them from commercial providers, assuming that they are not placed in a special category and reserved to the probation service. It is unarguable that no recommendation to a court for a sentence should carry with it a hidden interest. Anyone who is recommending to a court a sentence of, say, community punishment should not be able to hide his or her firm's interest in that sentence. I hope that with those few words new clause 3 can be accepted.
	On new clauses 11 and 12, I do not want to enter into the arguments for and against the outsourcing of probation services beyond the probation service. I wish to place on record, as I have by tabling an early-day motion, my admiration for the work of the probation service and for those who work within it as officers and staff. This is their 100th anniversary year, and I do not think that anybody would wish to detract from or diminish the work that they have done in very difficult circumstances. After all, they deal day after day with people who are extremely difficult to work with, such as drug addicts, violent offenders and sex offenders—broadly, people who do not feel that they have a place in society and see no particular reason to comply with the norms of social behaviour. None the less, the public service ethos cannot be monopolised by the probation service. Plenty of people outside it are willing and able to do that work. However, they should be properly regulated as regards their qualifications and properly monitored as regards their performance, and there should be no diminution in quality or in the provision of a 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year service.
	As the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) said, several small charitable bodies will not have the financial or secretarial weight to compete with some of the bigger organisations. It would be a pity, to say the least, if they were swept away by the bulldozers of big organisations which are equally well motivated but much better able to trawl up some of the easier contracts. I trust that those organisations will not simply pick out the easy ones and leave a truncated and underfunded probation service to carry on doing the most difficult work.
	Earlier, I mentioned some figures about NOMS headquarters that demonstrate that the Government seem to be wedded to a centralised bureaucracy that condescends to deliver services from the centre to the regions, and through the regions to localities. I accept that they want probation services to be pushed out beyond the state sector, but they are making matters extremely difficult by spending much more money—£60 million—on the bureaucracy in the middle than the probation service can currently spend on the front line. If that is their attitude now, what will it be like when they come to distribute the contracts and to the third and not-for-profit sectors?
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) picked on an issue that I was going to pick on myself—namely, that in new clause 11 the Government give, but in new clause 12 they take away. It is difficult to understand a Government who say that they want to push these services out beyond the state sector but then keep up their sleeve a legislative provision that allows them to amend, repeal or make law in this regard. That makes their arguments much more difficult to accept.
	The Government need to be clearer about what they intend to do as regards sub-contractors. We all understand that a service may be given to a big company or a big charity, but the Bill provides that work can be sub-contracted to second, third and fourth parties. The Government need to clarify to the House and to their own supporters what they mean by the provision in clause 3 whereby such work may be sub-contracted. New clause 11 mentions restricted probation services. We are owed a clearer explanation of where the restriction stops and how the work should be carried out.
	A few moments ago, the Minister said, rather disarmingly, that the Bill is designed to change the culture. I have heard of Bills doing all sorts of things, but I did not think that changing cultures was what we were about today. I am a little puzzled. The Minister seems to be convinced in his own head, if nobody else is, that the Bill is essential in order to move probation services out to the third, not-for-profit and commercial sectors. However, given that the Government have already done things with the probation service that did not require legislation—this is the third reorganisation of the probation service since they came to power—his argument about the need for this piece of legislation rather falls through.
	On 26 February, the Home Secretary complained in  The Daily Telegraph that only 3 per cent. of probation revenue goes to voluntary bodies. However, the figure was more than twice that until the Home Office under this Government decided that it was not money well spent. Government top-slicing of probation budgets further skews the picture. Certain services are no longer provided by the probation service. For example, drugs rehabilitation money now goes through drug action teams, offender accommodation money is routed through schemes called "Supporting People", and offender learning money goes through the Learning and Skills Council.
	All those funds, which used to be part of the core probation service budget when the target for outsourcing was 7 per cent., are now outsourced. The Home Secretary can truthfully say that the figure is only 3 per cent., but that is only because he made it so. It is 3 per cent. because the Government pushed those elements into other quangos and agencies. The Home Secretary is setting up an Aunt Sally when he complains, in that charming way that he has, that the probation service restricts itself to 3 per cent. of revenue going outside. It does not—the Government make it so. If they can change their mind on the move from 7 per cent. to 3 per cent. without legislation, they do not need this Bill in order to move from 3 per cent. to 10 per cent., 50 per cent. or even 100 per cent. In that regard, the Government's argument for the Bill—forgetting the arguments that the Minister has with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard)—is deeply flawed.
	I shall finish my speech now, as many Members will wish to speak on other new clauses and amendments. I shall, however, watch, wait and listen.

Chris Mullin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that piece of information, of which I was not aware. I look forward to debating that proposal in due course.
	As far as probation is concerned, I cannot see a problem that needs fixing. In my area in Northumberland, the probation service provides a good service and I am not aware of any serious concerns about the quality of the service provided. I am aware that in some parts of the country—a minority of areas—there are some concerns about the way in which the probation service is managed, but there are other ways to deal with those concerns, such as a shake-up of the probation board or a serious conversation with the management. I do not see why the entire service should be turned inside out to deal with problems that exist in only one or two areas.
	On the issue of the reoffending rate, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow made the point that it was not among the targets that had been set. It is only a very recent argument. We can all think of many reasons—not least the chronic overcrowding in our prisons and the difficulties in providing education and rehabilitation services—why the offending rate remains stubbornly high.
	There may be a case for shaking up the probation service in those few areas with a problem, but there is no general problem that needs fixing. As other hon. Members have remarked, it is only three years since the last reorganisation in the probation service and there has to be a limit. I shall support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend this evening.

John Denham: As other hon. Members have done, I wish to make it clear that even those of us who believe that there is a case for change in the organisation of the structures of probation do not mean that as criticism of the professional probation officers who work in the service. They do not choose those structures, and they work hard and professionally in the vast majority of instances. I want to make that point clear.
	It is a matter of great regret to me that the Government resisted the request from the Home Affairs Committee to give the Bill pre-legislative scrutiny. Such scrutiny assists the House in its work and some of the issues on which the Government have recently made concessions—such as the welcome concession on the issue of court report—could have been highlighted, resolved and solved before the Bill was formally introduced into the House, had it been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. The very important commitment that my hon. Friend the Minister made earlier this afternoon on requiring regional offender managers to take full account of local area agreements—a significant change in the structure of the Bill in terms of getting probation services to work with local authorities and other agencies, including the health service and mental health services—could have been addressed at an earlier stage. I believe that the Government would be facing less difficulty today if proper draft scrutiny of the Bill had taken place. I say that about nearly every Home Office Bill, because the Government almost always refuse draft scrutiny. I live in hope that, one day, we will handle these matters a little better.
	On the substance of the Bill, although some problems exist, I believe that we should start moving in the direction that it sets out. We should not reject it, which is what I understand the Opposition parties, and possibly some of my colleagues, have decided to do this afternoon. Rejecting the Bill would send out entirely the wrong signal, as would accepting the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). It would suggest that we are resistant to change in the provision of some of our probation services.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said, in effect, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I admire the work that he has done on these matters, but I remind the House of the report from the Home Affairs Committee on prison regimes and their role in reducing reoffending. Like many earlier reports, it highlights the catastrophic breakdown in the process by which prisoners make the transition from prison to the community. That need not happen: there are no reasons why current partnership arrangements should not have delivered a more seamless service, but the reality is that very few offenders get a managed transition that deals seamlessly with their needs in terms of housing, education and employment, as well as possibly providing marital or relationship counselling for those who want to get back with their partners. Meeting offenders' needs in those ways is the key to reducing reoffending.
	On paper, there is no barrier preventing the existence of such a service. However, the fact that it does not exist should tell us that we ought to be prepared to countenance some radical change.

John Denham: It is certainly arguable that it would have been better if, over the past four or five years, that power had been tested—to destruction, as it were—to see how adequate it is. However, every Member of this House must make a judgment about the current provisions in respect of returning offenders to our communities, a problem with which we are all familiar. Do we feel that the service generally provides ex-offenders almost everywhere with what they need, and that the failure in some areas needs to be addressed by a power of intervention by the Secretary of State? Or do we suspect that the great majority of prisoners leaving prison, in most parts of the country, do not get the support that they need?
	The Home Affairs Committee looked at prison regimes, and found that the latter possibility obtained. That is not the fault of the probation officers who have the responsibility to provide the service to prisoners; it is just that the present structures stand in the way of the provision of the more seamless service and the support that offenders need.
	A few years ago, the social exclusion unit produced a report on reducing reoffending. It is arguably the best evidence-based piece of social policy published by any part of this Government since 1997, but very few of its recommendations—in respect of housing, employment, support for families, education, mental health services and drug treatment, and all the other provision that needs to be made to reduce reoffending—has been delivered. That also suggests that our existing structures are not delivering, and that the failure is a large one and not confined to a few localities.

Gerry Sutcliffe: My hon. Friend is dealing with a point that is of concern to all colleagues—the issue of how much should be set out in targets. We think that there is an amount that could be contestable, but what drives us is not achieving targets for putting services out to the private sector. The question for us is: who can provide the best service? My right hon. Friend is entirely right; we are listening and we have said that we will be cautious. What drives us should be finding the best provider, and in most circumstances that is likely to be the public sector.

Tom Levitt: Over the past few weeks, my position has moved from that on Second Reading, when, as a loyal Labour Back Bencher, I was happy to go along with the Bill, to that of today, when I feel passionate that the Bill must be passed in its current form. That has happened because of my experiences over the past few weeks, and I can cite three examples in particular. First, I received 800 responses to a questionnaire about crime and justice that I put out in my constituency. Among the clear messages that came from the questionnaire were that reoffending rates were too high, that we could not be complacent about that and that we had to take drastic action to ensure that reoffending rates came down.
	A series of consultation events was held around my constituency with magistrates, police officers, people who worked with ex-offenders and, principally, members of the public. At those events, we also heard a strong message about reoffending. A chap called Bob Auld, who is well known to me and many in the High Peak Labour party, came to one of the events. He would be proud to be called a Stalinist and the last defender of the producer interest. Bob told us that he had worked with ex-offenders many times over the years in different circumstances. He said that the Bill has to go through, and his message was that we must shake off our complacency about reoffending. He put it in terms of having seen the light; I am sure that it was not quite as dramatic as that.
	My third experience in recent weeks was to visit the Hollowford outdoor centre in Castleton in the Hope Valley in my constituency and meet a group of young offenders. I saw the work that was being done with them by that charity and the interest of the people involved in working with those young people. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), I do not decry the passion and interest of probation officers, but there is an extra quality that can be brought by those who have chosen voluntarily to give their time to charitable causes such as working with ex-offenders to stop reoffending. By talking to the young offenders, I could tell that the people whom I met were having that effect.
	I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of the Circles project that operates in the Thames valley. It is run by a group of Quakers and works on an individual basis with former sex offenders. It has been going for several years, and I understand that it has other projects besides that in the Thames valley. It claims a zero reoffending rate because of the nature of the support given to individuals by people working voluntarily. Whatever the figures are, I am certain that the project gives us a model that could be replicated and built on elsewhere, and the voluntary sector is quite capable of delivering it.
	No matter what we have heard, there are major players and, indeed, minor local players in the voluntary sector who want to be involved. They feel that they have a contribution to make to reducing reoffending by supporting individuals to ensure that they have the capacity to live their life without offending. We need to have those people on board, working with the professionals in the sector. If the outcome is that only 10 or 15 per cent. of this work eventually goes out to the voluntary sector, so be it.

Gerry Sutcliffe: My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham made the point that if he votes for the amendment on the amendment paper today and it is passed, certain agencies will be excluded from consideration. I am simply making that clear to the House.
	To support the amendment is to go backward. The amendment covers the provision of approved premises—a subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber)—which, if it were made, could be provided only by the probation service. At present, approved premises are provided by organisations such as the Langley House Trust; the amendment would stop that happening. I understand where my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is coming from, but the amendment would do those things and take us backward, which is clearly not where we need to go. We want to move forward cautiously. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I listened to the concerns put to us, and why we tabled new clauses 11 and 12, which set out the relationships that we think are important. We were told that court reports are a significant element of what needs to be protected, in the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. We understood that, and that is why new clauses 11 and 12 were introduced.
	I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Patrick Hall) that clauses 11 and 12 go together. That is part of negotiation and achieving consensus, and we thought that we were moving in the right direction. Most hon. Members will know of my trade union background; I thought that, in negotiations, people on both sides gave a bit, but clearly that is not the understanding of some of my hon. Friends, as there has been no movement towards what we are trying to achieve.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen has a wealth of experience, as he is not only a former Minister but the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. He hit the nail on the head when he talked about the need for us to look for innovation and new ways forward. He was concerned about the pace of the changes that we are trying to undertake. I agree with him and, perhaps more importantly, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does, too. That is why we have tried to be accommodating. We have tried to understand that the ideological background to some of the concerns is a worry that we are talking about pure privatisation, but we are not. The measures are about making sure that we raise capacity, so that we have the best providers. In 2006, we announced our intention to complete up to £250 million-worth of probation business. Both the public and voluntary sectors can bid for that work, and that is the important issue. The measures are about raising standards and making sure that the best providers are in place.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) mentioned the letter from the YMCA, but that is only one letter. Hon. Members have received a number of contributions from voluntary sector bodies that say that they can and want to do more, but are prevented from doing so. Surely that is not right. We have strengthened local accountability, and hon. Members have accepted what we said about strengthening local area agreements to make sure that links are in place. The excellent work that has already been achieved, to which hon. Members have referred, can be built on. We do not want to remove the good work that takes place; we want to build on it and extend it further.
	I share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), who mentioned circles of support. A voluntary sector organisation that mentors sex offenders, and that works in difficult circumstances, achieves a superb reduction in reoffending rates, and that is what we want to happen, but under the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, they will be prevented from doing that. If a public sector provider is good enough, it will have as much chance as anyone else of winning the work, and I think that in many cases, it will; we have no problem with that.
	We have referred to the number of organisations that support what we are trying to achieve. It must be unique—at least in my time as a Minister, as far as I can recollect—for the Local Government Association, numerous voluntary sector organisations and the CBI to accept what we are trying to achieve. That leads me to the role of the Opposition. What we see from the Conservative Opposition is outright opportunism, again. They supported the Bill on Second Reading. They said that they sought improvements to it, but that if those improvements were made, and we ensured that there was no top-down structure, they would support the Bill. Clearly, they are not prepared to do that; they are prepared to put party politics before attacking reoffending and related issues.
	I particularly welcome the statement from Mr. Martin Narey, a former director general of the Prison Service. His background is in public service—he supported the introduction of private sector operations in the prison regime—and he now works for Barnado's, which is one of the main charities supporting children. He says that more can be done.
	My hon. Friends should accept our assurances in the spirit in which they are given. We will not move too fast, and we will take time to make sure that we do this properly. We have put safeguards in place to ensure accountability, so we will achieve what we are trying to achieve, which is reducing reoffending rates and the number of people in prison, and making sure that offenders are rehabilitated and integrated into society. If we achieve that, we will achieve a great deal for our constituents. I was asked what type of activity is covered by the Government amendments. The answer is all the work that the probation service does with the courts, including pre-sentencing and other reports, advice on breach hearings, bail and general assistance. As for the issue of offender management, we have made it clear that for the next few years we expect the supervision of individual cases and reports to courts and the Parole Board to remain in the public sector, which has inherited expertise in that area. Public protection is important, and we do not want to put the public at risk, which is why we want to proceed cautiously and make sure that we take people with us.
	My hon. Friends' ideological fears are fundamentally misplaced. This is not about privatisation but about making sure that we have the best provision to tackle reoffending. Multi-agency public arrangements, which are unique to the UK, are in place. It was this Government who introduced those arrangements, to make sure that the public were protected and that responsible agencies worked together. Across the world, MAPPA is regarded as a step forward, as it has established partnership between agencies which people did not think could work together. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough attacked NOMS, but 95 per cent. of its budget is spent on the front line. NOMS has been set up with existing resources, and it employs 69,500 front-line providers and 2,500 back-office staff, so it is not top heavy. I hope that the House has listened to what we have said, and backs the consensus that this is an acceptable compromise by supporting the Government amendments.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time.
	 Amendment proposed to the proposed new clause: (a), in line 2, leave out from 'trust' to end of line 8 and insert—
	'(2) In this section "restricted probation provision" means probation provision which—
	(a) is made for one of the probation purposes set out in section 1(1)(a), (c) and (f);
	(b) is for the provision of assistance to the Parole Board;
	(c) is for the management of approved premises within the meaning of section 9.'.— [Mr. Gerrard.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Gerry Sutcliffe: At the level of requirement of those skills. The point I am making is that there is no statutory responsibility to provide it, so probation officers, Prison Service officers and a variety of others are involved.
	At the moment, the intention is that this will be a policy document, which will be reinforced by contract. Again, I am considering whether I can strengthen the status in any way and I will report back on options when the Bill reaches the other place, as we can develop through negotiation. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East tabled a probing amendment designed to gain some reassurance that we will look further into the matter, so I hope that she will feel able to withdraw it.
	I move on to deal with amendment No. 20, which relates to staff in private prisons. As I explained in Committee—the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) will have read the  Hansard—the inclusion of a requirement for the Secretary of State to set particular qualification requirements for staff in private prisons is unnecessary in the light of safeguards contained within and outside the clause. In fact, it introduces unwarranted additional bureaucracy as a result. Having formed that view, I suppose that I need to explain to Members how and why I have done so.
	First, I remind Members that no such formal requirements apply to equivalent public sector staff performing the same duties. Neither are any of the powers proposed any different from those exercised by the equivalent public sector staff. Even if we ignored those factors, we would contend that the successful track record of private companies in delivering custodial services in the 14 years since the first private prison was opened already offers assurance that they can be relied on to recruit competent staff.
	I have mentioned the name of Martin Narey before and I will mention it again. When he was the director general of the Prison Service, he praised private contractors. They have certainly been a key driver of the improved treatment of prisoners and—under what is sometimes termed the decency agenda—of ensuring more decent prison regimes. He believed that it came from the commitment and involvement of the private sector in addition to what was going on in the public sector. I think that that seal of approval applies to all members of staff in the private sector, including non-prison custody officer staff who play a vital role in ensuring the effective operation of private prisons.
	Private prison contractors already undergo thorough pre-employment checks, which include a requirement to disclose all previous convictions. Under section 85 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, prisoner custody officer grades—the equivalent to prison officers in public prisons—must be authorised to perform their duties by the public sector prisoner custody officer certification unit, which is quite a mouthful. Although other staff are not subject to the same certification requirements as prisoner custody officers, they are still cleared via the same unit as part of their pre-employment checks.
	Any person seeking to work in a private prison receives a basic enhanced police check and, in addition, any person working in a juvenile prison or who will come into contact with children or vulnerable adults also undergoes a Criminal Records Bureau check. Such pre-employment checks are wholly consistent with those undertaken on equivalent grades in the public sector, in relation to which the amendment would not apply.
	The private sector is no different from the public sector in seeking to ensure that it benefits from staff who are fully trained and competent to conduct their roles. All private prison contractors require any newly appointed staff to undertake training prior to commencing their duties in the same way as in the public sector. Training may vary between contractors, but the common goal remains the same—to have a work force with the necessary skills to deliver the contract. Failure to do so would completely undermine the ability to generate new work in the future and would expose the contractors to risk within current operations.
	It is also worth remembering that controllers have the ability to examine training packages and even attend sessions if they wish. Indeed, the changes proposed elsewhere in the Bill actually free them up to spend more time to provide this quality assurance. In addition, once authorised and fully trained, certain safeguards are in place to ensure that the work covered by clause 13 is done by the right people.
	The clause requires that, prior to being deployed to perform a task listed in an order made under it, a member of staff must be authorised by the director. We can anticipate, in deciding whether to authorise any individual, the director will take into account whether the person is properly trained, has the appropriate experience and is generally suitable to undertake the duty. Importantly, any authorisation given by a director may be made subject to appropriate limitations or conditions and cannot, of itself, authorise the use of force in any circumstances.
	In regard to the safeguards that are in place outside the ambit of the clause, further checks and safeguards are provided by the fact that the controller of each prison may personally monitor staff undertaking these duties whenever they wish. Safeguards are also provided by the presence of an independent monitoring board in each prison, and by the existence of an avenue of complaint to the independent prisons and probation ombudsman.
	Finally, quite apart from the risk to the contractor of losing future business opportunities, there is the potential for severe financial penalties to be imposed for allowing operational failures to occur under existing contracts. We therefore feel that there is a powerful vested financial interest for contractors to ensure that their staff are suitable for the jobs that they are employed to carry out. I hope that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, having listened to what I have said, will be satisfied that his amendment to clause 13 is unnecessary, and that he will agree to withdraw it.
	New clause 7 proposes that probation services should carry out the legal duty to ensure the provision of speech and language services in prisons. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow); I understand that he is not in the Chamber at the moment, for the reasons given by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). In Committee, we debated mental health provision and other health provision, and I recollect that the hon. Member for Buckingham also raised the issue in oral questions a few weeks ago. I am well aware of his interest in these matters, and I know that it is not a passing interest; it is something that he feels passionately about. Indeed, I think that he chairs the new all-party group that has been set up to look at this issue. I do not, therefore, dismiss his views on the subject lightly.
	I know, however, that the hon. Member for Buckingham and other hon. Members will recognise that the responsibility for commissioning these and all other health treatments sits best where it does now: with the NHS. That is why we have ensured that NHS primary care trusts commission health care for people in prison and on probation in the same way as they do for their communities, on the basis of comprehensive assessments of local need. They do that under existing health legislation, and it is unnecessary to legislate further for specific services.
	In April last year, the Government completed the transfer of prison health services to the NHS from the Prison Service. That process began in 2003 and, since then, we have increased the investment in health services in prisons from £118 million to nearly £200 million this year. This change has given prisoners access to mainstream NHS services. All prisoners receive a health screening on reception into prison, as well as a general learning needs assessment. Where a need for speech and language therapy is identified, a referral to an NHS therapist is made.
	Indeed, the number of speech and language therapists employed in the NHS has increased by 38.8 per cent. since 1997, with 6,759 being employed at September 2005. I know that there is an issue about where those people are placed, and about their not being placed in custodial establishments, but the opportunity exists for teams to go into such establishments. Given this progress and the significant improvements in prisoner health care, there is no good reason to begin transferring elements of this responsibility back into the criminal justice system. Transferring prison health care to the NHS was the right thing to do, and I know that Members on both sides of the House share that view.
	On young offenders, the Department of Health will be extending child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—in young offender institutions. This will mean additional services for young people in custody, including child psychiatry, child psychology, community psychiatric nursing, speech and language therapy, psychotherapy and occupational and creative therapies. I am pleased to say that the additional funding for these new services has now been secured by the Department of Health, and is expected to go out to the service commissioners in early summer.
	New clause 7 proposes that these assessments should be made only by a qualified therapist with five years' experience. The NHS requirement is for the therapists to be registered with the Health Professionals Council after completing a degree at undergraduate or postgraduate level. That is a high level of qualification and it is unclear to me why the hon. Member for Buckingham thinks that it is appropriate for prisoners to have a legal right to professionals with greater experience than those available to the rest of community. I believe that that is unjustified and I hope that the House agrees. That is not to say that we are complacent on the issue. I look forward to the work that the all-party group will do and I expect to be in regular contact with it on this issue. There is some interesting work taking place on speech therapy and behavioural patters, and nutrition and behavioural patterns. I hope that with those assurances about what we intend to do, the new clause will be withdrawn.

Edward Garnier: I entirely agree, and if time permitted I was going to draw those sorts of conclusions in relation to proposed paragraph (e). It is rather like taking people up in an aeroplane, then throwing them out without a parachute and expecting them to land safely. That is what we do in our prison system. We do not rehabilitate people in prison, or not enough of them; we do not reform them; we do not enable them to come to terms with their offender behaviour, and at the end of their period in prison we say, "Here's the door—out you go," and expect them to behave. They cannot.
	Offenders may be irresponsible people, but we must bear it in mind that they are in many respects damaged people, albeit ones who have done extreme damage to other people. They cannot behave unless we take care of them as they come out of prison and make sure that they have employment and housing opportunities and are enabled to restore links with their families—all the sorts of things that the Minister and I have discussed over the last 15 months. Without all that it is highly unlikely that we will achieve what we want with the prison system. I accept that we are talking about irresponsible and, in many respects, very criminally minded people, but they are redeemable. However, they will not be redeemed unless we provide, through the offender management system, adequate rehabilitation systems.
	One of the most frightening things for a prisoner is those moments before release. I say this because of Jonathan Aitken. He was highly educated and had a family and a home to go to, but he said that the most frightening time for him after his period in custody was waiting to go out because he did not know what would be out there. Before his release, he was sitting in an anteroom next door to an old lag—he did not use those words—who had been round and round the system. He said, "The most terrifying time is now. In prison, you are cocooned. In prison, you do not have to make decisions for yourself. In prison, you are told when to get up, when to eat, when to sit and so on. But I am about to be thrust out the back door into the streets." I suspect that he felt like the man being thrown out of the back of the aeroplane without a parachute. The hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) is entirely right: the rehabilitation of offenders must include some form of resettlement and aftercare; otherwise, we will again lose people back into the criminal justice system.
	I have spoken for far too long, so I shall not deal with paragraph (d),
	"ensuring offenders' awareness of the effects of crime on the victims of crimes and the public",
	save to say that the ripple effect of one man's crime—it normally is a man—goes beyond the individual victim. It can extend to the victim's family, to the victim's workplace, to the victim's street, and to the wider community. That is something that the Sycamore Trust restorative justice course teaches offenders. Unless we have more of that work and greater strategic will on the part of the Government to ensure that all of the things listed in paragraphs (a) to (e) are provided within our criminal justice system, however well minded we are, we are wasting our time.
	I shall conclude my remarks here. I hope that I have dealt with the various amendments and new clauses, and if I have not, it does not matter. What is important is that we get this part right— [ Interruption. ] It genuinely does not matter. I can tell the Whip, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy), that the issue is so important and we have had so little time to discuss it that we are letting down the public, we are letting down the taxpayer and we are letting down our fellow citizens if we do not get this part of the Bill right.
	I have fundamental complaints about the Bill, and the House might hear more about that later, but in this discrete area, the Government are to be applauded for having got it right. It is just a pity that the provision fits within a mesh of legislation that does not get it right. None the less, in respect of the amendment, I applaud the Minister and wish him well in that part of his work.

Mark Todd: Briefly, I did not have the privilege of serving on Committee, so I shall rely on local comments that are relevant to the Government amendment.
	I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) about responsibility for victims. Some of the complaints that I receive about the performance of the probation service concern its communication with victims when carrying out its responsibilities, so a clear and explicit responsibility in that regard would be helpful in giving due weight to the role of victims in the criminal justice system. I wish to concentrate, however, on the clause 2—the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly identified its strange construction—as I could not find a clear requirement for the Secretary of State to manage the enhancement of the quality of all those functions as part of his responsibilities. I did not want to participate in earlier debates about the voluntary sector, because I am a committed supporter of its role in delivering such services, and I did not wish to add to the weight of opinion on the subject. My purpose in speaking now, however, is to address the subject of enhancing quality and the Secretary of State's role in ensuring that quality is delivered. Quality is achieved not by insisting on uniformity of service provision but by designing services around individual needs, including the needs of prisoners, individuals on probation and other people who have direct relationships with the probation service.
	That requires diversity, so we must consider—and I have raised this doubt with my hon. Friend the Minister—how to ensure the correct reflection of local knowledge and intelligence in determining individual service provision in a particular area. I do not have any particular anxieties about the generic use of private and voluntary sector contractors in the delivery of any of the aims to which the clause refers, but I am anxious about the loss of innovative edge of small contractors that may deliver excellence at a local level.
	The reason for my anxiety is the tendency of larger entities to try and simplify their contracting functions by saying, "Wouldn't it be easier if we had an overall contractor delivering this range of services across the area?" Yes, it would be easier, it would certainly be more efficient in contracting terms, but it would not deliver the innovative edge that allows others to learn from someone doing something new—that novelty can start small—and it would not necessarily be attuned to local capability to deliver the services that we want. I shall give a couple of examples from my area to illustrate my point.
	There is an excellent footpaths group, as it describes itself, in the village where I live. It carries out a wide range of other environmental projects as well. For a long time the group has had a relationship with the local probation service, with prisoners coming to assist with some of the work that the group carries out. It has been a tremendously positive relationship. I have asked both the probation service and the group whether there have been any problems in delivering such services. Both sides say no, the relationship has been excellent. The prisoners have gained greatly from exposure to carrying out various tasks in the countryside and dealing with well intentioned voluntary workers, and the village has gained from some works carried out.
	My anxiety is that those little projects and the little voluntary contractor who has been able to deliver something of tremendous value may be lost. There is another example, which has always struggled. A farmer who produces eggs has young offenders in particular coming to assist him on his farm. One of the Minister's predecessors, who is now the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), visited both projects and was extraordinarily positive about what he saw there.
	I do not want to lose those little local initiatives to a big brother contracting function, albeit one that embraces the voluntary sector and the private sector. I would welcome my hon. Friend's assurances about that. Some reassurance would come from scrutiny by local entities such as local authorities and the local police service, who very often know those links and can exploit them and help in using them in future. I hope that my hon. Friend can give a little reassurance about managing the quality function within the aims, delivering innovation and testing new ideas, which is often done on a smaller scale.

Clause 14
	 — 
	Powers of Director of a Contracted Out Prison

Gerry Sutcliffe: I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to the points that I made about clause 14 in Committee on 18 January, when that clause was discussed in detail. Through it, we are seeking to transfer to directors of private prisons certain powers currently exercised by controllers—Crown servants—regarding the segregation, control and disciplining of prisoners.
	It is important to keep in mind that we are not seeking through the clause to create any new powers. The powers of segregation and adjudication are essential control tools for maintaining order, control and discipline in our prisons. Rather, the clause transfers the responsibility in private prisons for segregation and adjudication from a Crown servant—the controller—to a private sector employee, the director, who under contract acts on behalf of the Secretary of State. Although we accept that the current restrictions made sense when private prisons were first introduced, they appear to be increasingly unnecessary, especially as the private sector has been credited, as I said earlier, with helping significantly to improve conditions for prisoners and has had a central role in advancing the decency agenda across the prison estate.
	Directors can already take decisions about the segregation of prisoners in an emergency; indeed, such decisions are more likely to be taken in those circumstances. In such cases, the director has to seek retrospective approval from the controller. There is no evidence that that system has been abused since the opening of the first private prison, Wolds, in 1992.
	Adjudication powers can also be transferred safely to directors, who will operate within the same constraints of prison rules as public sector governors and will use exactly the same procedures as those laid out in the prison discipline manual. Hearings that may result in the award of additional days will have to be passed to an independent adjudicator, in line with operations in the public sector.
	The benefits of the change are that directors will be able directly to influence order and discipline in the prisons for which they are responsible, and controllers will be freed from a time-consuming task to spend time monitoring the delivery of the contract and the quality of service provided. The discipline system in private prisons will mirror that in the public sector for the first time.

John Reid: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	We have had a productive and useful debate this afternoon on Report. Despite my inability to attend all of the debate, I can assure the House that I was listening to it intently during discussions with many deeply interested Members from both sides of the House. I thank everyone who has contributed in the Chamber today and on previous occasions, and those who have contributed outside the Chamber in discussions with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), and me.
	The contributors and the contributions have significantly improved the Bill in several areas, some of which I will deal with tonight. However, there are also several issues to which we will wish to return in the other place.
	Over the past few weeks, my hon. Friend the Minister and I have met a range of parliamentary colleagues, prison and probation staff and those who assist the service, in addition to representatives of the voluntary, private and charitable sectors and the Local Government Association. Considerable consultation has occurred even as the Bill has gone through the House and I know that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have had personal experience of that. We have listened carefully, as we are duty bound to listen on any occasion, but especially when we are dealing with such serious issues with such potentially serious consequences. In addition, we have studied the many helpful amendments that have been tabled. I wish to summarise how we have responded to those concerns and how we will continue to work to improve the Bill as it continues its passage. Before I do so, I wish to make a few general remarks about the underlying principles behind the legislation for the benefit of colleagues and for the avoidance of doubt.
	For the avoidance of all doubt, I wish to make it clear that this Bill is about supplementing the probation service, to reduce reoffending and to protect the public. Its primary purpose in practical terms is to protect those who send us to this House by reducing, through rehabilitation, supervision and better management, the reoffending that so often afflicts our society with individual and, sometimes, collective tragedy. It is not about privatising the probation service.
	The public sector already has, and will continue to have, a key role to play in the management and rehabilitation of offenders. To illustrate our commitment to that, I merely point not to our words, but to our practice over the past few years. The Government have invested massively in the public sector probation services. Since 1997, overall staff numbers in the probation service, which some hon. Members mentioned earlier, have not reduced: they have gone up by no less than 50 per cent. or 7,000 more staff. Public probation service funding has also increased by 40 per cent. in the past five years alone. We have shown a sustained commitment to the public sector and we will maintain that sustained commitment to our probation services.
	Moreover, the increased inputs that I have described—in resources, staffing and new methodology—have been converted into improvements in the treatment of offenders. This year, the number of offenders being taught basic skills is four times what it was only four years ago, while the number of offenders subject to accredited offending programmes is five times what it was five years ago. That shows that there has been a vast improvement in the numbers of people receiving assistance.
	For instance, funding for prison drug treatment has risen since 1997 by 973 per cent.—that is, a rise of almost 1,000 per cent. in the money available for treatment for drugs-related offenders. Yet, even so, the reoffending rate has remained stubbornly high, and that is one of the reasons why we are discussing these matters this evening.
	We can argue about the exact details of reoffending rates for different categories of offenders, but we all know that the rate has remained high in spite of all our efforts. I want to try to build on the investment that has been made already by enabling specialist providers in the voluntary, charitable and private sectors to supplement—not supplant—the public sector, where appropriate. I want to harness all the available energies in the reduction of reoffending, and that is the first point that I want to make.
	My second point follows on from that, and has to do with my overriding concern to provide public protection and offender rehabilitation. Both those priorities are at the heart of the Bill—and as a result much of the Bill is not contentious—but they involve huge challenges that are too intractable for any one sector to handle alone.
	We need to open up the reservoir of potential assistance for offenders so that all providers—be they public, voluntary, charitable or in the private sector—can play to their strengths. We will not make a real impact in reducing offending if we cannot harness the specialist skills and resources of organisations familiar to, and respected by, Members of this House. They include organisations such as the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, Turning Point, Rainer, Crime Concern, and the St. Giles Trust. The latter organisation, which I visited last Saturday, helps offenders by providing employment opportunities: only people who have been down a hole can help others get out.
	We want to use all the specialist skills that are available to complement the work done by the public sector. If they are given the chance, organisations such as the ones to which I have referred have a huge amount to contribute, and all of them back the Bill. They might not agree with its every aspect, but they welcome the core approach on which it is based, and the advances that its formulation will make possible. They do not merely acquiesce in our proposals; rather, they have expressed their support both publicly and in private.
	I turn now to the question of targets—a matter that has been raised constantly both with me and with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South. People are very concerned, but we already have targets determining how much work must be contracted out of the public sector. In other words, they determine the outcome for services that must be put into the non-public sector by the probation board. In future, we shall abolish the existing targets and replace them with an entirely different type of aspiration. In future, the aspirations—the targets—will not be based on the a priori assumption that there is a level of non-public sector work that must be carried out, whether or not it gives best value or is from the best provider. That would be a dogmatic approach that could unjustifiably force work out of the public sector. No a priori assumptions will be made under our approach.

Clive Betts: As my right hon. Friend knows, I have raised that issue with him so I am heartened by his comments. He seems to be saying that probation trusts will be required, for a certain percentage of their non-core work, to seek the provider who is most suitable and can deliver best value, and that provider could be in the public, private or voluntary sector. The process would be akin to the best value procedure familiar to many of us in local government and which is generally supported.

Frank Cook: The House knows that I am a Teesside MP and I am concerned about the impact of the measures on that area. Is my right hon. Friend saying that a degree of autonomy will be afforded to the Teesside probation service to look after aspects of its own behaviour?

John Reid: I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said this afternoon. It is a logical follow-on from what I said earlier about the motivation being best value and best providers, not any dogmatic insistence that services should be provided in this or that sector, that decisions must be based on the evidence. What I took him to be asking in the course of the afternoon was whether we could use the period during which the management of offenders would be retained in the public sector to compile monitoring and reports that illustrate the efficacy or otherwise of the process. That is a perfectly legitimate and intelligent thing to ask and I therefore give the undertaking that we will do that, so that, before we get to any future stage—I will mention another lock on that point—people can see the evidence about how things have been working. In short, I know that this is an area of particular concern for some colleagues and therefore I am extending the time during which this aspect will be retained in the public sector to the lifetime of this Parliament. That is what I said last time I was at the Dispatch Box and I repeat it again.
	I know that there is particular concern among hon. Members about the support that the public probation service gives to courts, especially regarding the writing of reports, which is at the heart of offender management. That is an especially important and sensitive area of work that can be key to the success, or otherwise, of what follows to reduce reoffending and to protect the public. For that reason, we tabled an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to contract only with the public sector for the work that the probation service does in relation to courts. That provision could be repealed only by an order subject to the affirmative procedure that was agreed by both Houses of Parliament. If, at some future point, any Government were to decide that the time was right to open up that area of work to non-public sector providers, they would have to make the case to Parliament, and Parliament would have the final say. In short, there is a three-year guarantee for the retention of offender management in the public sector and a double lock meaning that any movement after that will require a vote of both Houses of Parliament. I believe that those assurances are hugely significant and I hope that they will go a considerable way towards meeting the major concerns that hon. Members have expressed to me. I assure hon. Members that we have listened to their concerns and that we will continue to listen.

John Reid: My hon. Friend is not being entirely fair. First, I have said that we will have elected local councillors on the probation trusts. Secondly, I have said that the trusts will be required to publish their plans. Thirdly, I have said that the regional commissioner will be required to consult the trusts. Fourthly, I am now saying that I will consider ways of ensuring that the regional commissioner relates to the local area agreement. I have done that in a framework through which I am guaranteeing that offender management will stay in the public sector for three years. Even after that, a vote of both Houses of Parliament will be needed to change the situation. If that does not bring my hon. Friend comfort, I am not quite sure what will. I have listened and moved a considerable way, as many hon. Members will recognise. I am as determined as anyone else in the House to get this right, otherwise the public will not be protected and the people who will carry the can for that will be Ministers.
	I have tried to consider the views of Labour Members and, in some cases, I have compromised significantly. I have done so because, in the vast majority of cases, their concerns are shaped by a commitment to this public service and public protection and underpinned by sincerity.
	I now turn to the Conservative party and, especially, to the Leader of the Opposition. In November 2005, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said:
	"If the Labour Party puts forward proposals which we agree with, then we should support them and not just oppose for opposition's sake. That is the sort of Punch and Judy politics that people in Britain are tired of and which we must end."
	Of course, we have been told continually about the commitment of the new Conservatives to work in partnership with the voluntary sector. They make general statements about that, but we have the benefit of a special statement from the Leader of the Opposition:
	"I don't think that the voluntary sector has an important role to play. I believe that the voluntary sector has the crucial role to play."
	He was talking about penal policy and offenders.
	I understand that despite all these avowed intentions and promises, the Opposition are considering voting against the Bill tonight. That is a choice for them alone to make, but I caution them against opposition for opportunism's sake. To vote against the Government tonight, in contradiction to everything that they have publicly declared in the past, even if they were to win, would be at best a hollow victory, since in capturing the minutes of opportunism they will have thrown away the hours of integrity, and it will be noticed by the public. It is the sustaining of principles and policy over the hours that is the true mark of leadership and potential Governments, not the opportunistic minutes. Even worse, and I say this to my hon. Friends as well, if they vote against the Bill tonight, abandoning all consistency and principle, grasping nothing but hollow air and opportunism, and they lose, they will then have lost twice. They will have lost their political credibility entirely; they will have lost their integrity; and they will have done it in pursuit of a cheap, opportunistic hit.
	I say to my hon. Friends that the Conservatives' predicament is always our opportunity. Members on the Labour Benches should remember that when we are voting we can not only improve offender management and the protection of our people in this country but expose the Conservative party for what it truly is—a bunch of policy-less, principle-less opportunists. I commend the Bill to the House.

David Davis: I start by agreeing with the Home Secretary on one thing. Like him, I listened to much of the debate and thought that nearly all of it was serious, principled and important, even those parts I disagreed with. The only part that I would except from that is the last two minutes of his speech. I am fascinated to be lectured by this Home Secretary on credibility.
	The Government said that the aim of the bill is to reduce reoffending. Everyone in the House, indeed everyone in the country excepting perhaps the criminal fraternity, would applaud that aim, and we certainly do. As the Home Secretary said, we specifically support the idea of more diversity of provision. The support that we gave on Second Reading was not unconditional, and we said that clearly at the time. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said that
	"we see a Government addicted to control and centrally devised models".
	He went on to say:
	"Our support for the Bill is not open-ended but conditional on the Government's responding to us... If they work with us and improve the Bill, the Government will have a new regime for the supervision of offenders that works. If they ignore us, we will...defeat this Bill on Third Reading and in another place."—[ Official Report, 11 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 601-2.]
	That was very clear and very consistent. If the Home Secretary was not listening, that is his problem.
	The picture that the Home Secretary paints of the progress of the Bill is hard to recognise, with the possible exception of the last 48 hours. The Opposition—both Opposition parties, it is fair to say—made every effort to secure a cross-party approach in Committee to try to achieve the best Bill possible. For example, right at the beginning we called for an evidence-taking session to get the best expert evidence on what change would really deliver practical benefits. That was under the new rules brought in by the Leader of the House. That was refused point blank by the Home Secretary. So much for consultation. But we held the session anyway.
	In January the Committee heard from independent experts in the field, and the few quotes that I shall now read to the House are from the House of Commons Library note on that hearing, which I take as an impartial summary record. The former chief inspector of prisons, a very principled man who has stood up for his cause over time,
	"identified the principal problem facing the Probation Service as one of overload, and was sceptical that trusts, by contracting out the supervision of offenders to the private or voluntary sector, could solve the problem."
	The former head of the Prison Service and the probation service, Martin Narey, who was prayed in aid by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), earlier,
	"argued in favour of both offender management and competition, but said that neither counted for much unless the right balance could be struck between sentencing and the prison population, because of the damage overcrowding does to work on rehabilitation."
	The head of the respected home affairs think-tank Civitas
	"suggested that the Government's proposals on contestability were being too dominated by central Government to allow sufficient innovation."
	Even the Home Secretary acknowledged our collaborative approach, only this week thanking my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for our "constructive" engagement through the Committee stage. Those were his words—a little different from the words he used tonight. However, as the Library note makes clear, the Bill was not substantively amended at all in Committee. So much for constructive engagement with the Opposition.
	Although one amendment has belatedly been accepted by the Government today, that does not change the central flaw of the Bill. The Home Secretary—amazingly, in a Third Reading debate after a Committee stage and a Report stage, still proposing to amend the Bill—promised some minor changes that would not fundamentally alter the fact that the trusts, as the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) pointed out, are, in the final analysis, appointed by and accountable to the Home Secretary, not to their communities. So much for localism.
	On that basis, the Home Secretary is correct: we cannot support yet another Home Office Bill. There are three principal grounds on which we shall vote against Third Reading. First, despite the Home Secretary's claims, the Bill is about more centralised Government control over offender management. Let us be clear: over-centralisation is bad in its own right, but over-centralisation in a Department that is already in difficulty, that is struggling to cope and that may simultaneously have to cope with a massive reorganisation as the Home Office is cut in two, is a recipe for disaster—something that the present Home Secretary might recognise.
	In his letter of 26 February to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Home Secretary claimed to be championing a "more devolved approach" to the system, one that would be sensitive "to local needs". Again, those are his words. But the head of the Probation Boards Association, whom I regard as a more credible witness, described the Bill on the "Today" programme this morning—

David Heath: I start by thanking the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), for the competent and well-humoured way in which he conducted himself on Report; that was appreciated by the whole House. Moving on to the Home Secretary's extensive speech, which took up the majority of the time allocated for Third Reading, he painted a warm, fuzzy picture of what he believed some of his hon. Friends would like the Bill to be, and of what he believed he might persuade them that it meant. That picture bears little relation to the words in the Bill, or to its consequences, if it is passed tonight.
	The Home Secretary employed the common ground shared by all parties. We all want a seamless transition between prison, the probation service and, beyond that, proper rehabilitation in the community. We all want those services to be improved; that is common ground, and we do not need the Bill to achieve it. He said that he wants to supplement, rather than supplant, the probation service, but if he intends to supplement it, why did he not accept the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard)? Why did he not accept that some core areas are the proper province of the probation service, but that in other areas, it would be possible to supplement what the probation service does with proper involvement of the voluntary and charity, or indeed private, sectors?
	We have to take into account what we heard before today's speech. We must hear the mood music—the famous speech at Wormwood Scrubs, and the rubbishing of much of the probation service's work, which took place before this debate and before the introduction of the Bill. During the stages of the Bill, there has been no indication of how it will address the failings that the Home Secretary perceives in the performance of the probation service. The repeated refrain was that the Bill will engage the services of the charity and not-for-profit sectors in ways that are not possible at the moment, but it was never said what the barriers were to engaging those services under current legislation. Many of us believe that those barriers are not there. The only answer that the Minister gave, in the Bill's earlier stages, was that the Bill would change the culture of the probation service—a proposition that I find laughable.
	We should consider the reality of the Bill before us, including what are purported to be Government concessions. I repeat that giving a concession with one hand while including, in the same group of amendments, a new clause that provides for repeal of that concession, seems an extraordinary way of doing business.
	Basically, this is a centralising Bill that concentrates power directly in the hands of the Secretary of State and his appointees. What clearer illustration of that could there be than the fact that the Home Secretary presented as a major concession the provision for probation trust chairmen to be drawn from the areas in which the trusts work. That is not a concession but local accountability—the chair should have a relationship to the area with which the trust is involved.
	The Bill will result in a great failing in accountability. At the moment, if a mistake is made in the probation service, the service is publicly accountable, both locally and nationally. The Home Secretary can order an inquiry and the probation inspectorate can conduct an inquiry on its own initiative. We can raise such matters in the House, and remedy or improvement can be made. Under the contracted-out arrangements, if there are errors the best that can happen is a breach of contract, which is remediable under civil law. That is not the way in which such a desperately important service should operate. We face the prospect of newly appointed commissioners with no direct experience commissioning services from newly appointed operatives with no direct experience of providing such services. We opposed the Bill on Second Reading, and we have been entirely consistent in our view. We hoped that the Secretary of State would redesign the Bill to achieve the objectives that he set out today, but he has not done so. He has not taken the advice proffered in Committee and on the Floor of the House, and for that reason, we stand resolute, and we will oppose the Bill again this evening.

Tom Levitt: My hon. Friend will have noticed that the Back Benches of the official Opposition were empty throughout the major part of this afternoon's debate, and that that party had no view on the key amendments and clauses that the House was discussing. Does that not suggest that having not been present for most of the debate, opposing the Bill on Third Reading is indeed opportunist?

Paul Farrelly: Does my hon. Friend recognise that a number of us who voted against Second Reading and for an amendment this afternoon work closely with our probation services and are genuinely concerned about how the knee-jerk privatisation of part of the service will follow through to improving offending rates? We have not heard that argument made.